If you thought you could use Tinder and swipe with privacy, a new service called Swipebuster allows anyone with $7 and some vague personal info about you to find and view your profile.
The creepy new service works like this: you create an account, pay them $US4.99 ($7), give them a name of someone you want to find and give them a general location of where you think they used Tinder last. Using Tinder’s API, Swipebuster then shows you several accounts that might match up with your search. When you find who you’re looking for, it shows you their photos, their age, their bio and the last time they used Tinder.
The idea behind the service is to bust potentially cheating partners who are swiping away their relationships, but it’s bad news for everyone who wants to use Tinder with any sense of privacy. Anyone with a few bucks can use the app, so that means stalkers and abusive exes can find you on Tinder too. It just goes to show that if you thought you had any sense of anonymity with Tinder, that actually isn’t the case.
Comments
3 responses to “$7 Strips Away Any Privacy You Have On Tinder”
Couldn’t Tinder render the app useless by changing their API?
Certainly, it wouldn’t help unless the relevant features were actually removed from the API, which would also affect any number of innocent third parties.
Really, what it comes down to is that you should never expect anything that you put on the Internet to remain private.
(Edit) to clarify here – you should certainly expect the people providing services on the Internet to try to maintain your privacy. Just be aware that at some point, one or more of these companies will fail to do so, through poor planning, accident or malice.
Good edit.